


Compassion

by Writerleft



Series: Comes Marching Home [15]
Category: Avatar: Legend of Korra
Genre: Book 3, Canon-Compliant, F/F, Gen, kyalin - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-31
Updated: 2019-07-31
Packaged: 2020-07-28 04:07:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,154
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20057758
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Writerleft/pseuds/Writerleft
Summary: A waterbender has been laid low by the Red Lotus. A woman from Republic City is just starting to face her feelings for her.You think you’ve heard this one before? Check again--this may not go the direction you expect.





	Compassion

When it came to reasons why she’d wake up in a strange bed, in pain, Kya’s least favourite option was after falling off a mountain. She’d experienced several different routes to this outcome in her life, but so far, falling off a mountain certainly stood out as the worst.

As badly off as she was, though, Korra was worse. Kya had been able--barely--to get to her feet near the end of Korra’s fight with Zaheer, just in time to see her bring him to the ground like a meteor and then, from the looks of it, die in her father’s arms. 

Suyin had gotten the poison out of her, enough to get Korra breathing again, but the Avatar was still dancing around death’s door, and she was just a few decks away on this airship. 

Kya had had plenty of time to lie around, cataloguing her misadventures. It was time she started moving again, time she did something. With a grunt, Kya heaved herself into a sitting position. It hurt, and left her panting with the effort, but she’d managed through worse. Next step, get her legs out of bed and take six short steps to the door.

Orrrr maybe she’d just crumble onto the floor instead? Apparently that’s where her knees wanted to go. She managed to throw her arms back and catch herself on the bed, but that just bounced her ribs against the edge of it and WOW. 

WOW that was a lot of pain. Right-past-cursing-into-outright-shock, the-air-began-to-vibrate kinda pain. 

So, maybe, Kya decided, she’d take just a few more minutes to sink down onto the nice, comfortable, steel floor while she got her breath and conscious mind back. The hard floor would help straighten out her spine. Yes. 

This was definitely on purpose. The only sensible course of action, really.

Definitely more important for her, the only healer on the ship and probably for hundreds and hundreds of miles, to lay there on the floor than to treat the Avatar’s life-threatening injuries. 

Kya closed her eyes--she didn’t know for how long. 

When had she gotten so useless? So weak? Zaheer had escaped her in Republic City, captured her here… She was one of the few people in the world who knew what it was like to bend against an airbender, and she’d been unable to stop someone who’d only had airbending for a few weeks? 

Kya automatically began patting her pockets, seeking out the familiar shape of her uncle’s compass. She didn’t have any answers, and whenever that was the case, she looked to her compass for guidance. The old heirloom had no more answers than she did, but it always helped her to know that there were new directions she could take. It connected her to her heritage, and to the horizon, and had always helped her navigate her way between both.

And, she remembered, it was gone. Taken by the Red Lotus when she’d been captured with as much callous disregard as when they’d confiscated her handkerchief and her water pouch. These bastards had taken her uncle all those years ago, and now they took his compass from her, too?!

Kya opened her eyes with a sigh, hoping the world was solid again. Only, her vision was obscured by something blue, fuzzy, and gently glowing. After a moment in which Kya worried about exactly whether she’d hit her head on the way down, she recognized Bumju hovering just above her. Kya blinked. Bumju blinked back, then, seeming to take that exchange as an invitation, settled onto her chest.

“Go back to Bumi, Bumju. He sleeps better when you’re there.” 

Bumju looked at her.

“Don’t look at me like that.”

They flapped their wing-ears. 

“No, this was not stupid of me.” 

Bumju didn’t respond in any way. 

“Of course I know how to act my age!” 

Had one of Bumju’s cheeks twitched? 

“I resent that! I have everything completely under control! I’m just...adapting to a new situation. A situation where I can’t, temporarily, move my legs. But I’ll be fine in a minute! And, anyway, probably the floor moved or something. That can happen on an airship, right? That’s probably what definitely happened.” 

Bumju’s fur fluffed up. Snidely. That just _ had _to be spirit-snide.

“Just...go bother someone else! I’m busy, here!”

Bumju chittered, then flapped their ears and gently fluttered away. 

Kya closed her eyes, and let out a long breath. 

Korra, the defender of the world and the reincarnation of Kya’s own father, was over in her own room, surrounded by friends and family and world leaders who were moving heaven and earth to see her healed. As well they should be, too--Kya couldn’t begrudge Korra their attention.

Still, to be shoved in a room with her sweet idiot of a brother once everyone was sure their injuries weren’t life threatening… it was a lonely feeling. And yeah, she’d been alone for most of her life, but, especially when you’re body’s hurting, that ache becomes a little harder to ignore.

Maybe she shouldn’t have shooed Bumju away so soon. 

“This airship may be built for comfort, but I still bet the bed would be more effective.”

Kya’s eyes shot open. She turned her head, much too quickly--her vision of the room was a little too slow to follow. She tried to turn her wince into a smile. “Ah! Hey, Lin! What brings you here?” Kya frowned. “Wait. Did Bumju get you?”

Lin stood in the doorway, her arms folded, her eyebrows raised. “So far as I can tell, Bumju hasn’t left this room in hours. But the bigger question is, would you prefer to discuss Bumi’s pet spirit or… glowy life partner or whatever, or would you rather I help you up off the floor?”

“I mean… you could come down here and visit any time. You never come down to visit. But you’re visiting now. Why are you visiting?” 

“I… Well, first I wanted to check on you two. Everybody is worried about Korra, but there’s a city worth of people hovering around her and it didn’t seem right that nobody was sparing a thought for you. So… how are you doing?” 

Kya gave a thumbs-up, only slightly undercut by her wince. 

Lin nodded. “I suppose it doesn’t help much to say I’ve seen you worse. And vice versa, for that matter.” Lin turned her face, subtly hiding the parallel scars on her cheek that she’d refused to let Kya heal, all those years ago. “But… while I’m here… and you’re here… I also wanted to talk. About...things.” Lin frowned. “Which I’m not going to do while you’re still sprawled out on the deck.”

“No, Lin, really I’m--”

Ignoring her, Lin strode briskly to Kya’s side, knelt beside her, and--with a surprisingly gentle grip--lifted Kya from the floor. Without even a grunt of effort or any other sign of strain.

Kya attributed the brief spell of dizziness that followed to her rapid change in elevation, and not at all to being dead-lifted by a muscular woman who didn’t know her own beauty. “Spirits! How… how are you still this strong? How hard do you _ train _?”

“Very.” Lin gently laid Kya down on the bed, fussing over getting Kya’s treacherous legs back under the blanket. “I don’t have much spare time, but I don’t have much else to do with it.”

Lin’s eyes were very close, very green. From a distance, they usually looked cutting and hard, but here, within Lin’s reach and surrounded by her aura? 

“You’ve lost weight,” Kya murmured. 

Lin’s brows furrowed. “What do you mean? That’s not why I train. I’ll have you know--”

“Your aura, I mean. There’s less… heaviness, to it.”

“Oh… so it was my aura weighing me down all these years,” Lin chuckled, sitting on the bed beside her. “You could’ve mentioned that sooner.”

“Why does everybody blame me for their own auras!” Kya mock-complained. 

“Don’t like being blamed for other people’s problems? Try being Chief of Police sometime.” 

“You’re awfully far away from your city, Miss Chief.”

“Of the two of us, I’d say you’re the authority on mischief.”

Kya gasped. “Was that a pun?” 

Lin scowled. “Maybe I’ve spent too much time around Water Tribers. Did… it make you feel any better?” 

“Lin Beifong, cracking jokes? It’s honestly a bit confusing… but that does distract from the pain a little, so mission accomplished, there.” 

“Well… good.” Lin paused, her lips puckering. “That wasn’t my mission, though.”

“Ah. I think I remember you saying you wanted to talk about… things?”

“Yes.”

After another, longer, pause, Kya prodded Lin’s knee. “I’m going to need you to actually deliver that report on the things, Miss Chief.”

Lin sucked in a breath, her hand digging in one of her pockets. “I, uh… searched the caves before we left for anything the Red Lotus left behind. Anything that the lava didn’t take, at least. I found this.” 

She pulled a battered, hide-and-bone cube out of her pocket, and placed it in Kya’s unresponsive hands.

“Oh… “ And suddenly, Kya’s hands were gripping the familiar object. “Uncle Sokka’s compass! I thought… The Red Lotus took it off me when we were captured. I thought it was gone. Lin, I--”

“Returning stolen property, it’s all part of the job.” Lin smirked. She began to shift her weight, but Kya’s hand gently gripped her wrist. 

“Beifong or no, you’re not escaping a hug for this. You’ll just… have to do all the physically moving parts of it right now…” 

Lin rolled her eyes, but leaned over so Kya could wrap an arm around her back. It was one of the more awkward hugs Kya had ever bestowed on someone, but awkward was soothingly familiar when it came to Lin. Lin waited at least two seconds longer than she usually would before she cleared her throat, signalling a retreat.

“Thank you,” Kya said. “But… as much as I love you for this, you said something about talking…” 

“I did. I… when I was in Zaofu… Su and I are… talking now. And not the kind of talking that escalates to yelling and ends in violence. Usually.”

“That’s surprising. How did you manage that?”

“It was hard at first… a lot of pins and needles.” 

“Yeah, heavy family topics left too long can be hard to bring up.” 

“I meant acupuncture.” 

“Oh.”

“But… that _ did _ help me bring up those heavy topics I’d been stewing on for decades.”

“That sounds remarkably open-minded and mature of you, Lin. I’m proud of you for dealing with things in such a positive way.”

“Well…” Lin shifted in her seat. “Initially, we talked, but it quickly turned into a yelling match, and then we... resorted to violence.”

Mustering all her strength, Kya heroically managed not to laugh even a little. “Ah.”

“But it didn’t end with the violence this time. We… talked more, after the fighting part. We talked about all the things we’d avoided… the things _ I _ had avoided since we were kids. Perhaps, most of all, the fact that we _ were _ kids. We’re different people now. I… I find that I… _ prefer _… having a sister in my life than to… not. Having that.”

Kya was both incredibly happy to hear that Lin and Su had reconciled and also straining incredibly hard not to cackle at Lin’s… Lin-ness. 

“And it got me thinking about… being a kid, I suppose. It got me thinking about… other people that maybe I… haven’t been fair to?” Lin met Kya’s eyes, her own looking troubled. “Or have kept at a distance for something that happened too long ago to… Ugh, do you know what a statute of limitations is?”

“I know I can’t go back to Omashu for at least another three years.”

Lin snorted. “Well… probably there’s things I’ve been holding a grudge over way longer than I legally--that is, logically--should have. If… I was even right to be mad about them at all.” 

Kya had already spotted that Lin had shaken a lot of her negative energy, but _ this _ was far, far more openness than she ever would have expected. Carefully, Kya clasped Lin’s wrist and gently squeezed. It was less physical contact than they’d shared a few minutes ago, and less than Kya would typically offer, but the context changed everything. Lin needed encouragement, but Kya was worried that anything too overt might make her withdraw instead. 

Lin didn’t withdraw. She did look across the room, towards Bumi’s sleeping figure--eye contact might be too intimate for her, still--but she stayed. She kept talking. “I… Su hurt me a lot, back then. I carried a lot of anger over what happened, and I tended to be pretty… black and white, about it. So, when I found out you two had… spent time together, while you were both travelling the world…” 

“We were both adults, at that point, Lin. And we both knew we’d be moving on, in different directions. It was never--”

“It was never really… it was never really my business.” Lin’s eyes flitted to Kya’s hand on her arm. “I acted like you’d chosen her side, as if everything came down to me or Su. If she made you happy, even for a little while, I should’ve been happy for you, not mad at you!” 

“It wasn’t ever a serious thing, though,” Kya said, not sure why she felt it was important Lin knew that. “We were young and beautiful and traveling on our own and it’s not like…” 

Lin turned to look at her. “Not like what?” 

“Not like there was anyone I fancied getting tied down with,” Kya said. She wasn’t sure if Lin ever knew how big of a crush she’d had on her as kids, and she sure as heck didn’t want to bring it up now. “And I mean, honestly, I think we were both still in that young, piss-off-your-parents kinda phase that you and Tenzin never had so we had to hit it twice as hard.” 

Lin snorted. “Pissed off your siblings, too. It gave me and Tenzin something to bond over, at least.” 

Kya laughed--and instantly regretted it. She contorted in pain, the compass creaking in her fingers as her ribs told her, firmly, Not To Do That. 

Lin pivoted in the bed, grabbing Kya’s free hand. “Are you okay?” 

Kya nodded, taking a breath. She eased up on her grip of the compass, wondering if she’d left finger marks in the hide covering. “Now I know why you spent a long time avoiding these painful conversations…” 

Lin dropped Kya’s hand to free up both of hers to fully express her opinion of Kya’s sense of humor. “I was trying to be serious!”

“You were doing really well!” When Lin drew in breath, preparing, no doubt, to growl, Kya smiled. “You are, Lin. You’re doing well.”

Lin subsided, her gaze flicking over Kya’s face. “Should we… should we continue this later?”

“I am… more tired than I care to admit.” Kya shifted on the bed, wincing. “But also in too much pain to sleep, so…”

Lin sighed, nodded, taking a moment to collect her thoughts. “I… suppose the main thing is, I’m… sorry. Not least for taking this long to realise that I’ve… that we could have been closer. I mean, perhaps… I think my life would’ve been better if you’d been in it, and it’s my fault for being so bad at being a person.” 

“Oh, Lin… do you _ know _ how much emotional wreckage I’ve left in my wake? We’re all just doing our best… and you’re making an effort to be even better. There’s not many people who’d realize that they need to do that, especially at our age.” Kya sighed. She flipped open the compass, considering the instrument’s old, familiar face. “I spent my youth, wandering all over the world, just… for the sake of it. Meeting people, having new experiences… even breaking a few hearts.” She shook her head. “With the Earth Kingdom in chaos, so many of those places, those people…”

Kya closed her eyes to think, but she must’ve been thinking longer than she expected because she was startled when Lin said, “Kya?” 

She blinked herself back to full--mostly full--wakefulness. Maybe fatigue was finally starting to win against pain. Still, waking up to Lin’s face was something she could get used to. “Still here,” Kya said. “I just… once I’m healed back up, and made sure Mom’s okay back in the South… I think I may start wandering again.” Kya looked one last time at her compass, safe in her grip again. She gently closed the cover. “But with a purpose, this time.” 

“What do you mean?” 

“I mean… there’s going to be a _ lot _ of people needing help soon, Lin. All over the continent. Do you know how many lives a healer can save during a civil war?” 

Lin opened her lips, just a little. She locked eyes with Kya. “I know how many lives one healer has to lose wandering around a civil war.” 

“You don’t think I can handle it?”

“I… that’s not what I mean. But it’s not--” She sighed. “It doesn’t matter how powerful you are, war is war. I’d worry.” 

Kya gave a little smile. “Maybe I’d write you?” 

Lin snorted. “Take on a warzone by yourself, I believe. Writing somebody consistently?” She shook her head. 

Kya chuckled--carefully. “Fair point. Jerk. But whether or not I write, at least now, I’ll be able to find my way home.” She shook the compass in her hand, just enough to get Lin’s attention, then slid it safely back into its pocket.

Lin tapped her wrist, leaning over to smile at her. “See that you do. I’ll be furious if I have to look for that thing again.” Lin hesitated, so briefly few would have noticed. “I... if this is where your path takes you next, then I know you’ll save a lot of lives. And if Korra is as hurt as she looks…” 

The mention of Korra gave Zaheer one last victory--it sucked all the air from the room. 

“I… should let you sleep,” Lin said, looking at the floor. “We’re still a few hours away from Republic City. You should rest, so you don’t end up on the floor again the next time you try to get up.”

Lin stood, but Kya caught her hand. “Lin… thanks. Thanks.” 

“For the compass?” 

Kya smiled--she’d half-forgotten about it. “That too.” 

The hint of a smile touched Lin’s lips. “Don’t mention it. Get some rest.” 

“See you around, Mischief,” Kya said with a little wave. 

Lin chuckled as she, gently, pulled at the door, peering at Korra through the narrowing crack. In the end, she decided to leave it open, just a little, before she finally stepped away.


End file.
